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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Soulmate, Myself:
The Wedding Song
Introduction
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The Wedding Song proclaims a vision of life, romance, and marriage as
“something never seen before.” But, we wonder, what might have been
left out in the message of 100,000 love songs? Is there anything left to say?
Let’s ask John and Mary what they think.
The Soliloquies of John and Mary
You know John and Mary, of course, you do. Everybody knows John and
Mary, real nice young people. They’re part of your church and neighborhood, and we see them everywhere. Good kids. Well, it’s a pretty big day for them, they’re getting married this morning. Let's listen in on their conscious and subliminal thoughts:
John’s soliloquy
Mary’s a great girl. I’m lucky to have her. I know she’ll make a great
wife and mother. And I do love her. I mean... of course, I do... funny, why did I need to say that? That’s strange because Mary is really nice... I mean, I used to go out with some other girls who were fun, if you know what I mean... but, anyway, Dad’s right, life is more than fun. My time for sowing wild oats is over now, time to settle down... and anyway, Mary is fun, too. She likes to laugh and joke, and she’s smart and competent, and she’s a great manager and knows how to get things done; and she’s very pretty, as well, even Mom admitted that... it’s just that, I don’t know, the picture is perfect in many ways, but, even so, there’s something about it... well, it doesn’t matter, I guess, because I’ve come to realize that marriage will be more than “splendor in the grass” and one big continuous high; that’s not realistic, no one has that… but, anyway, as I said, Mary will make a great wife, I know she will, and we’ll be fine, and we’ll have a nice big house filled with lots of nice things, and we’ll have the perfect family. And it’s high time for me now, as Dad keeps saying, to get serious about life, no more fooling around. It won’t be long before I’m 30, and I haven’t even done anything yet, and I’m starting to feel a little edgy about that. I need to make my work front-and-center now. I mean, Mary is important to me, too, of course, she is, and the future kids, they’re important, too. But, everyone knows life is rough out there, and I have to make sure the family has the money we’ll need to have a good life. I have to think about that very seriously, don’t I? - why, sure I do, who could argue with that? And I know that Mary, with her competence, will keep the home-front running smoothly, with the kids and all, and I’ll be able to concentrate on my career. I know Mary wants to work, too, which is good, we can use the extra money, but it’s my job as head of the house to make sure it all comes together. I mean, men are supposed to be the breadwinners, right? That’s my job, isn’t it? We’re supposed to get out there in the trenches and make a difference, aren’t we? I mean, I have to be responsible for everyone in the house, don't I? And so I think Mary will understand my insistence on making my work important and spending the hours to make it happen... And, I have to admit, it will be so nice just to come home after a hard day's work and sleep with a pretty woman. I need that pleasure in my stressful life... Anyway, I’m sooo tired of Dad pushing me to buckle down, to get a good girl, and finally put my life in order so I can make my mark on the world… There’s nothing wrong with all this, is there?
Mary’s soliloquy
John is a level-headed man with good character. I’m lucky to have him. I remember those other guys who wasted my time, and I couldn’t depend on them; all they wanted was cheap thrills and good times and they would let me down. But John is serious minded and hard working. And I know he'll be a steady partner in building our family. And I can already see those little kids, and I love them already. I hope for a little girl and a little boy, but I have especially dreamed of having a baby girl since I was a teen. I know we'll all be happy in our nice house, and those babies will make us happy. I mean, well, it's not just the babies alone, of course... I mean, I do love John, sure I do, and he'll make me happy, too... well, why am I telling myself that? Anyway, it's time to put away pink-cloud empty dreams. I'm not sure why I'm bringing all this up - as I said, John is a good man, and I do love him, and I'm lucky to have him... I think I just said that... Ok, alright, maybe John wasn't my number one all-time prince charming, and maybe he wasn’t my absolute first choice, but it’s not an ideal world out there where we get everything we want, and John’s a dependable man. I mean, how long was I supposed to wait, anyway, with the clock ticking and all that? It’s just pie-in-the-sky to think that I would ever find Mr. Perfect, that's never going to happen. Yes, I know, when I was a young girl I dreamed about having more, but it's time to face the music. Maybe John isn't that romantic “glass of spiced red wine in a crystal goblet at a nightclub” that I really wanted, and maybe he is just a “plastic cup of warm milk while watching old reruns at home,” but he's a cup of warm milk in a cold world, and I've decided to settle for that... Is that really so bad? What's wrong with that? John can be counted on as we make our way in this harsh and difficult world. Isn't that enough? I mean, marriage is more than flowers-and-candy and a roll-in-the-hay, isn't it? Get over it, girl, of course, it is! It's about adorable babies gurgling, and boisterous kids growing up, running and playing tag; little ones studiously making mudpies and gleefully splashing in a plastic kiddie-pool in a backyard enclosed by a white picket fence; it's about watching these dear ones take their first steps, and joyous Christmas mornings, and proud grandparents visiting, and birthday parties for five-year-olds, making wishes, and blowing out candles, and tooth-fairies for tiny tots eager for bedtime stories, and sharing all those happy moments that families do, and then later not growing old alone. I mean, isn't that what a woman is supposed to do here? Isn't life really about marriage and kids and putting family first, I mean, even if you don't get everything you want? ... And, I have to admit, it really did feel so good to be accepted and chosen by someone. I was worried. I was starting to be depressed that I'd be left on the shelf, disgraced, not being wanted by anyone; maybe I won't have a Disney-princess love affair with John, but it couldn't be too bad, could it? not to mention, I was getting sooo tired of Mom calling me every Friday night, badgering me, asking if I'd found a good man yet, kindly reminding me that I'm "not a spring chicken any more," and I "can't afford to be too picky" now. How I hated to be judged that way! (sighing) Oh, Dear God in heaven, how glad I am that's over! maybe John won't be my perfect love-match, but I'll have a hard-working man, and I'll have a house and a family, and I'll have the babies - so at least I'll have a life to live! - that can't be so bad! Well, anyway, I've made up my mind that I'm going to be happy on this special day, and I am excited about the many good things to come... and so, there's nothing so wrong with all this, is there?
John and Mary are quite correct. There’s nothing wrong with any of this;
but, as they will come to see -- increasingly so, as the years pass, during
those sleepless nights of 3 AM brutal introspection, and in tortured dreams wherein no lie can exist -- there’s nothing particularly right with it, either.
The soliloquies of John and Mary represent typical utilitarian "cares of this world" views of marriage. These two, as we say, are "getting married," about to enter a domestic business contract; married, as Elizabeth Barrett asserted, "for a reason." The Wedding Song, however, knows nothing of this pragmatic "buying and selling" negotiation; instead, it insists on an "ultimate reality" perspective of eternal romance “never seen before.”
Mary, dear girl, is distracted today and in no mood to entertain matters of such high moment. Right now she's all smiles, the biggest smiles of her young life, so very excited about embarking upon her longed-for happiness. Mary's not ready to see more clearly; not yet. Today is not the day for her to admit that the very best thing in life, in its purest form, is worth waiting for, no matter how long the wait. But, thousands of borderless days, and longer nights, will soon be presenting themselves, clamoring for remonstrance, that she ponder what ought to have been. A whispering inner guidance-system did its best to warn. But now, a growing disillusionment will become the forbidding doorway to wisdom.
Mary seems to have forgotten -- but will soon be jarred into remembrance -- that, when she was a little girl, a cup of warm milk would make her nauseous; and, if they made her swallow enough of it, if it became an obligation... she would vomit.
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Smallville, season 1, episode 5
Clark comments that he'd grown up with Lana, on adjacent farms, just one mile apart. Yet, he acknowledges, they don’t really know each other well. Even so, says Lana, Clark seems to be the only one who understands her -- a truth admitted, but too-easily discarded.
Clark loves Lana but, in his non-flashy way, has been unable to tell her. Lana now circulates in a different orbit as one of the leading figures in a vacuous high school "Hollywood" culture. And, in blatant "sin against holy romance," muting the inner-whispering counsels of her deeper person, she has chosen to be with someone incommensurate with her nature.
Clark: (exasperated) “Why do you go out with him?”
Lana: (half-heartedly) “He’s there for me. He makes me feel safe.”
Lana doesn't get it. Right now she's too interested in being "chosen" and "accepted." She articulates the philosophical position of most women named Mary. It’s the famous “warm, safe, and dry” argument; it's worked out so well for adherents thereof in world history.
Soon she'll enter the ranks of Ann Landers’ “miserably married.” This Mary will wed in haste, and repent at leisure, over the coming barren decades. She'll discover the hard-edged reality, in sorrow and tears, of the Troubadour Guides’ dictum:
You’re not supposed to be with someone because he makes you feel safe or accepted; you’re supposed to prepare for, and wait for, that person, one particular person, who will lead you to "the joy" that makes you feel alive!
All true - even if he is a bit Clark-ish. But Clark should have told her. He's not blameless; we can tell by that exasperated tone that he'd recently seen some things and had undergone a personal "volcano incident" of duties left undone. Still, he did nothing.
As for Lana-as-Mary, she's entering a new classroom, a time of new learning, but not the pleasant kind. In the “cultism” article we learned that anything can be turned into a cult. It happens anytime a personal responsibility to face life courageously, to trust one's true self, is traded for a cheap promise by some “strong father-figure” to provide safety, risk-free passage, and certainty. Many, maybe most, of so-called marriages of this world fall somewhere within this untoward continuum.
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more than drinking the koolaid
The long reach of cultism encompasses much more than crackpot churches. The root idea of cult offers the sense of "cut." This core concept of "cut" leads us to images of refinement and refashioning and, by extension, development, control, pattern, order, and system.
Cultism as systemization finds a ready home in religion and philosophy which seek to regulate and redistill the patterning and ordering of ideas. However, in a larger sense, the spirit of cultism extends to every facet of society. We find it scheming and sedulously at work in politics, academia, family, corporations, entertainment, science, artistry – anywhere power might be gained by capturing credulous and fear-based minds.
See the “cultism” page for a full discussion.
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Mary, if she’s not very careful and “open eyed,” will do almost anything to be “accepted” - to find her sense of self-worth and significance by giving herself to some man; this is an effective way to thoroughly ruin your life.
And John, in this dysfunctional “dance with the devil” dynamic, is all too willing to accommodate her fears, to rule over her, posturing himself as source of Mary’s emotional salvation. Well, it’s an old story and it’s had a long run, but little wonder that these ersatz marriages will not see transfer to Summerland.
Fate, destiny, and green-kryptonite meteor showers align against Lana and Clark. No matter the hidden intentions of their hearts, nothing goes right for them just now. It’s always something keeping them apart. They enter a time of out-of-phase love: he’s ready, she’s not, then he’s with someone else, and now she’s on the outside looking in.
Lana: (wistfully) "Sometimes the right person can be right in front of your eyes, and you never even know it." (season 1, episode 19)
Amen, Lana. Our advice to her: Your eyes have their own x-ray vision, if you will but trust what you know to be true, on the deep-inside. In place since you were a little girl playing with Clark next door, you'll find your "constructive assent" guidance-system whispering to you; don't ignore it.
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Reprinted from the "what we stay alive for" essay:
The mystic Carlyle Petersilea, channeling the following from the other side, expressed the same concerning sacred romance:
“It was the first time in my life that a sense of home and complete rest had filled my soul… Obey me implicitly in one thing. Do not marry for any consideration [of status, comfort, or physical beauty]; if you do, bitter woe will be your portion, and a lifelong misery on earth; every morning you will desire death, and every night your pillow will be wet with tears… [why will you curse yourself thus?] wait for the counterpart of your own soul.”
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be careful, Clark, you're not wearing your glasses, and she might realize your secret Twin-Soul identity; but a word of caution to Lana, too: watch out for those laconic, unpretentious farm boys; some of them unambitious to seek for stardom in high school, "with a pink carnation and a pick-up truck" -- are the most dangerous
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